Hague court convicts former Bosnian Croat leader

Former Bosnian Croat leader Jadranko Prlic and five co-defendants were sentenced to between 10 and 25 years in jail on Wednesday for "ethnic cleansing" that included the murder, rape and expulsion of Muslims from Bosnia during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague found Prlic and five co-defendants guilty of 26 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their roles in the brutal conflict, and also held them responsible for the destruction of the Ottoman-era Old Bridge at Mostar, whose shelling became a symbol of the ravages of the 1992-1995 Bosnian conflict. Former Bosnian Croat leader Prlic was sentenced to 25 years in jail and his co-defendants to jail terms of between 10 and 20 years which are his former defense minister Bruno Stojic, and four senior military officials: Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petkovic, Valentin Coric and Berislav Pusic. Reading from a summary of a judgment that ran to more than 2,600 pages, presiding judge Jean-Claude Antonetti said murders, rapes and deportations had been committed by the armed forces of the self-proclaimed ethnic Croat state of Herceg-Bosna.